Audio transcription
For more interviews and talks, visit the Harvard Film Archive Visiting Artists Collection page.
John Quackenbush 0:00
February 7, 2015, the Harvard Film Archive screened short films by Mati Diop. This is the audio recording of the introduction and the Q&A that followed. Participating are HFA Programmer David Pendleton and filmmaker Mati Diop.
David Pendleton 0:24
Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I'm David Pendleton of the Harvard Film Archive, and I'm here to welcome you all to this evening's screening, our second evening presenting the films of Mati Diop, who's the fifteenth recipient of the Geneviève McMillan-Reba Stewart Fellowship. I explained the fellowship last night, but let me go over that again for those of you who weren't here. The McMillan-Stewart Fellowship in Distinguished Filmmaking was established at Harvard's Film Study Center in 1997, thanks to a generous gift from Geneviève McMillan, in honor of her late friend, Reba Stewart.
Geneviève McMillan was born in Geneviève Lalanne in France, arrived in Lexington, just after the war as a war bride and soon settled in Cambridge, where she became a fixture of the cultural scene here in Boston, and particularly in Harvard Square and at Harvard. She was an avid collector of African art, and many of the important pieces in the MFA’s collection of African art come from Geneviève. And she was also an important patron here at the Harvard Film Archive, typically sitting in the back row, in the corner there, where Lucien is. And so as a result of all of these interests, she established a fellowship that's awarded to outstanding Francophone directors from Africa, or of African descent in order to support their work. (And so by “Francophone Africa,” we mean, of course, Northern Africa— countries such as Tunisia and Algeria—but also the former colonies in western and central Africa.) And every year, we invite the recipient to come here to Harvard, to interact with the community here at Harvard, and in Boston, and Cambridge, including faculty, scholars, students, and also to present their work here at the Harvard Film Archive, share it with local audiences.
And so tonight, we're showing three films by Mati Diop, who is the latest recipient. She's an emerging filmmaker whose most recent film, which we saw last night, A Thousand Suns, has won a number of awards, and really made her somebody to be watched on the international film scene. And tonight what we're going to do is see three films that she made between the years 2009 and 2012 while she was working on A Thousand Suns. The three films that we're going to see are remarkably varied. I won't say too much about them, because we have the filmmaker herself here to do that—except to point out the variety of places in which they’re set, the variety of places that they refer to, and also the variety of formats that they take, both in terms of the material used to capture the image, but also the material that we see on screen. And I think that these three films taken together point towards—just like A Thousand Suns—a future career full of fascinating work, I think, by Mati Diop.
There are some people to thank for making this event possible. I want to thank the current staff of the Film Study Center: Director Peter Galison, Assistant Director Ernst Karel and particularly Program Coordinator Cozette Russell. And I also want to thank representatives of the McMillan-Stewart Foundation who are here tonight. I see Anne Marie Stein is here. And so if we could have a round of applause, and thanks for these folks for their work. Appreciate it. Thank you, Anne Marie.
[APPLAUSE]
I think that's all I'll say, other than to remind you to please turn off any devices you have that might make noise or shed light. And also to remind you, that A Thousand Suns—which we saw last night—is in some ways, an interrogation of what remains of the film Touki bouki from 1973 made by Djibril Diop Mambéty who is Ms. Diop’s uncle, and we'll be showing that film on Monday night. Mati and I will be here to say a few words of introduction and we'll be seeing a recent restoration and preservation made by the World Cinema Foundation thanks to the efforts of Martin Scorsese and the Cineteca di Bologna. So come back for that. Touki bouki is a wonderful film and a masterpiece of 70s cinema globally. Alright, that's how I'll say now. But please welcome—to introduce the three films that you're about to see—Mati Diop!
[APPLAUSE]
Mati Diop 5:25
Thank you very much, David. Thank you to all of you for being here tonight. I'm happy to, once again, thank very much [UNKNOWN] the Film Study Center for their support of my work and Haden Guest and David Pendleton for making this happen too, and all the people who have made these screenings possible. Thank you very much for your support.
So the three films you're going to see have been made between 2009 and 2012. The first one is called Atlantiques. It’s shot in Dakar, the capital of Senegal. It's a film that I began on my own to produce and that I finished in my school. The second one is called Big in Vietnam that I shot in 2011, which was a commission by a producer. And the rules of the game were to shoot in a city that I didn't know called Marseille in the south of France. I had the [opportunity] to cast some actors I didn't know, so it was a playground in which I had to find my own way. You will see what it came to. And, this third film is also shot in France, in the French Alps. It's not a commission, but it's also a proposition from a producer. And so maybe it's not a script I would have written without meeting this person, because depending on the production contexts, [films don’t] necessarily arise the same way. So it was just to give you an idea of the very different context of production of these three films. And yes, I would be happy to discuss the films with you after and have a great screening. Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
John Quackenbush 8:05
And now David Pendleton and Mati Diop.
David Pendleton 8:11
Please welcome back Mati Diop!
[APPLAUSE]
Perhaps as usual, I'll start a conversation by asking a couple of questions. I'm actually curious to talk a little bit about the context—placing these films in the context of your overall career. You made these films while you were in the process of making A Thousand Suns, correct?
Mati Diop 8:42
In parallel, yes.
David Pendleton 8:44
Right. And Atlantiques, the first film that we saw, you made while you were still at Le Fresnoy, the film school...
Mati Diop 8:56
No, I began the film on my own. I was not in film school, and I didn't know any producers. But once I shot the first material, a producer saw the main material—I mean, the scenes around the campfire—and proposed to be my partner in this film and to help me to finish it. And then I entered the school. So the film was co-produced by me, the school and Corinne Castel who produced it.
David Pendleton 9:34
And you had made films before Atlantiques?
Mati Diop 9:37
Yes, a guilty one that I never show. [LAUGHS] No, no, in 2004. I didn't even send it to any festival. It was a film with my friends.
David Pendleton 9:52
Right, right. And so then between that and the next thing that I know of is you acting for Claire Denis in 35 Shots of Rum. I mentioned that yesterday, but not today. If you've seen 35 Shots of Rum, Mati plays the central character, the young woman who's the daughter of Alex Descas, who’s marrying Grégoire Colin. Did the experience of making that very first film have something to do with you ending up working with Claire Denis? I guess I'm curious about how you found your way towards making Atlantiques then.
Mati Diop 10:28
For those who saw A Thousand Suns yesterday, it was a film I shot in Dakar as well. Atlantiques that you just saw tonight, the scenes around the campfire with Serigne and his two friends were supposed to be part of A Thousand Suns where I was making [?dialogue for the younger generation?]. But finally, for many reasons, Atlantiques became a film on its own. So the scenes around the campfire were shot in 2008, and then I came back. When I was in my school Le Fresnoy, I wanted to do Mille soleils but it was not enough money and really too early for me to commit myself to this film. And so I decided to go further on Atlantiques, and to go back—after the scenes of the campfire—to go back to Dakar and to meet with Serigne again. One of the three characters of Atlantiques is my cousin, my little cousin. And so Atlantiques is shot in two different moments, the moment where Serigne is there and a moment where he's not there anymore. Because when I came back to continue the film with Serigne he, he wasn't there anymore. And so the question was how to continue this film without him, and I finally found a way to make this happen.
David Pendleton 12:17
I'm curious about the way that shooting documentary footage has perhaps influenced your way of shooting other kinds of footage. It seems like often your camera keeps a certain distance from the actors, as if it's observing them. Not exclusively, but I'm thinking of something like Big in Vietnam, for instance, which is clearly a completely fictional film, but at the same time, it's shot in a very sort of observational way, and rather than getting close to the character, we mostly watch them. And you see this a bit in A Thousand Suns too. I guess I'm wondering if you can say a little bit about...
Mati Dip 12:57
It's almost impossible for me to talk about these three films or four films as if it was the same film, because each of them has a very specific motivation, context and relationship to the characters. And like I was saying yesterday, I never film someone in this documentary or fiction relationship. I just, for example, in Atlantiques, the first scene we shot around the campfire, it wasn't the idea of making a documentary; it was an urge to capture the story of a young man who I met with my cousin. Like I said yesterday, it was a time in Dakar where a lot of young people would do like Serigne, would leave the country for Europe, in a massive way. And in France it was treated in the media in a terrifying way. The media would talk about the numbers of lost people on the sea, of dead, and also were really… Comment dit-on? [SPEAKS IN FRENCH]
David Pendleton 14:38
“And at the same time, this question of this sort of imaginary frontier between Africa and Europe was also central to this discussion.”
Mati Diop 14:53
[SPEAKS IN FRENCH]
David Pendleton 14:58
“And so that there were all of these immigrants who were sort of tracked or treated as a menace.”
Mati Diop 15:08
As somebody from here and also from there, I thought I had the opportunity to give back the storytelling to one person. I mean, I was really obsessed by making the story of one individual—that was really the prime [reason for] there. And it's somebody I spent a lot of time with—friends of my cousin—so the night when we shot this scene, it wasn't like I was making a documentary about immigration; we had a ton of discussions about crossing about, about me being there—in a very easy way. And it just happened one night, we shot this. Because behind all of this, behind what these young boys were telling me about wanting to escape, I could hear something [more] than economical reasons. We also wanted to capture this kind of obsession and fever about this escape because for me, it was also telling a lot about this teenager fantasy to reinvent yourself. It was really also like a rite of passage to me. I mean, this is how I was pursuing it. I wanted to highlight also the epic and mythological aspect of this story. So that was one night, and then the other part was shot a year later. And Big in Vietnam is, of course, completely another story.
David Pendleton 17:32
That's true, although you can say it's also about people who are here and there, which is the way that you just described yourself: people who are from here or from there. And in this case there are people who belong to the Vietnamese community, but they're living in Marseille, but they're also filmmakers. And so I see a certain similarity in that you're trying to take these stories that are around migration, post-coloniality, etc., but also give them a twist so that you introduce these elements of fantasy or as you say, of myth, of fiction etc, so as to not reduce them to a merely sort of economic or sociological story. And that's why I'm fascinated by the way in which you sort of go back and forth between an exterior look at the characters versus bringing them in closer. I mean, I guess your Snow Canon is the obvious counterpoint where it's all interior. Can you say a little bit more... You talked about it almost as if it were a commission.
Mati Diop 18:40
Snow Canon or Big in Vietnam?
David Pendleton 18:41
Maybe it was Big in Vietnam.
Mati Diop 18:43
Yeah. Big in Vietnam was a commission and Snow Canon, not a commission but a proposal.
David Pendleton 18:54
Well then I'm curious about the way in which Snow Canon is so different from the rest of your work? I mean, so much of it's about displacement and here it's all one place.
Mati Diop 19:03
For me, of course I [see] a big difference between the three films but I still can easily link the three films together, even just about the object of desire, this need to reinvent yourself somewhere or also to create something completely… I don’t know how to say. But Snow Canon, yeah, it was a proposal from a producer and the money was already here to shoot, which is an extremely rare occasion for a director to have somebody proposing you make a film already with a budget for it. Never happens. In France, we have this very special system and when a producer produces and you’re familiar, he can propose to a young director to produce a film—anyway, I’m not going to get into these technical things. But it's something quite special for an author or director to just write when the money is already here, it doesn't come from the same need or urge. And so I decided to work on something I was already thinking about. At the time, I wanted to adapt a novel from a Norwegian author, Tarjei Vesaas. And it's a novel called Ice Palace. And so I used this opportunity to prepare a little bit. Not to prepare my long future, but to start to explore this very close relationship between two girls, set in the mountains. And I co-wrote this film with a friend who became my producer after and she also wrote—a big influence was a novel of Unica Zürn called Dark Spring. And, I also put a lot of my own teenager inside. And yes, it was the first time I was shooting in film. It was mostly to force myself to write a script with a beginning and an end and something much more—less aléatoire—but much more programmed and strict. I like to invent constraints for myself. Not that you don't already find a lot when you shoot films. But yeah, it's a really [a separate] project.
David Pendleton 22:13
Just a note of transition... When you say it's much less aléatoire—well, we have this word in English “aleatory,” but it also means “less random.” And it's true that a lot of your other films seem to often proceed in this sort of kaleidoscopic fashion where there are these little pieces that fit together, and we have to sort of make connections. And it's true that Snow Canon feels much more compact. Is that a direction that you prefer? How do you see yourself in the future in terms of the compactness versus the much more aleatory, open structures?
Mati Diop 22:48
I think, in A Thousand Suns, which I shot after these three films, I really found the balance that was quite ideal for me, which was, on one side, a very light way to shoot with a little crew, but also the 35 millimeter which is also here, which, like I said yesterday, would really frame the film also because of its constraints. And the film had both the freedom of documentary shooting and also the gravity of a fiction film. But for the next one, I still don't know. I mean, it's a long feature, so it's different and I don't know yet. I will see.
David Pendleton 23:41
Are there questions in the audience before I go on with questions? If you have a question, raise your hand and we'll bring a mic to you so we can all hear.
There's a question down here, James. Raise your hand so that James can see you.
Audience 1 23:56
I’m wondering if you showed Atlantiques, or A Thousand Suns in Senegal, or at FESPACO in Ouagadougou.
Mati Diop 24:05
Atlantiques has been shown only once. I showed the film to some of the actors first, but it has only been shown once. It's very difficult for me to understand the reactions. People are not used to seeing people of the streets—I mean, people of the real life of the streets, like marginal communities. They're not used to seeing these people. They never really used to see them anyway. But Senegal has become very conservative. It was a very strange experience for me to show it in Senegal because I don't think most of the people were really okay with me giving so much importance—not importance but place—to these people. Each time I show a film in Dakar, it's always a quite painful experience, because—I know it already—but that's where all the reality, the political and cultural reality, kind of kills me. But it's like this and at least the people I made the film with are very proud of it. So again, I didn't really try to show it there. I think I would just...
David Pendleton 25:57
You think it would be too shocking?
Mati Diop 25:59
No, I mean, it's just not the idea. [LAUGHS] No, no, no… A Thousand Suns was shown also and the same, it was a very strange, very schizophrenic feeling because the film was almost a little too African… not “civilized” enough, not “occidental” enough. Because my guy is drunk a lot. He represents a generation that's not truly represented anymore. And, like I said, it has become very conservative, so what is being shown in A Thousand Suns is only understood by very few people and there's no more cinema culture at all. So it's very violent for me, sad for me to show the film there and to realize that nobody really can... I don't know who I'm talking to anymore. I know who I'm talking to, actually, but only a few receive it. But, yeah, it's really a very strange place for somebody like me or Alain Gomis or Dyana Gaye who also come from both sides to make films over there. I think it's still great that—even if the money doesn't come from there, and even if we live in Paris—that we’re still invested in the place and, try—each of us in a very different way—to make film there. But yeah, it's really a strange position.
David Pendleton 28:14
So when you say that A Thousand Suns was not Western enough for the audiences, they’re used to a more sort of Hollywood film convention?
Mati Diop 28:26
No, but a lot of great Senegal filmmakers did a lot of things in the 60s and 70s, but since [then], the cinema culture is just really falling apart, and the TV has replaced cinema, and there's no more cinema screenings, there is no film education… There is no cinema anymore. But there are a lot of neighborhood initiatives, like young people do a lot of things. There's schools, but it's more “audiovisual” than cinema. There's a bunch of young people really fighting in a very engaged way to show films in the streets, to make films on their own, but there is not money invested at all by the state. And there are little, small communities who try to do stuff. And it was very strange, I assisted with a festival once in Dakar, and I saw a bunch of short films made by young Senegalese and some of them were in French—in a very precious French that I don't even hear anymore. So it's very strange. But there's always a couple of people who make the difference. And that's what you have to focus on otherwise.
David Pendleton 30:11
Sure, yeah.
Are there other questions from the audience? Raise your hand. Oh, yes. Michelle, in the back, has a question. And then there's a question up here.
Audience 2 30:23
Hi, I can imagine Sylvain George’s documentary being really great with Atlantiques. Do you know what I'm talking about?
David Pendleton 30:31
No, I'm sorry. I didn't hear what you said, Michelle. No, the mic is on, but maybe if you could just speak a little more slowly and/or loudly? Whose documentary?
Audience 2
Sylvain George.
David Pendleton 30:42
Oh, yes. Which one?
Audience 2
The one that was about the people trying to cross over...
David Pendleton 30:46
Oh, yes, Qui’ls reposent en révolte.
Mati Diop 30:51
I’ve seen this film. It really marked me a lot. I entered a cinema room to see; I had no idea what it was talking about. And I've been really amazed by the film, but most of you may have seen it, so...
David Pendleton 31:16
Yes. But no, that’s right. That would be a good pairing.
Mati Diop
It’s a wonderful film.
David Pendleton
For those of you who haven’t seen it, there's a documentary-maker, Sylvain George, active now in France, who made a beautiful two-and-a-half-hour documentary about illegal immigrants trying to pass across the English Channel. It showed at the Brattle, actually, and we hope to bring Sylvain here one day too, so hopefully you’ll get a chance to see it again. Thank you, Michelle.
And, this gentleman here had a question.
[INAUDIBLE AUDIENCE QUESTION]
David Pendleton
The question is, why wouldn't the producer insist on Snow Canon being shown? I think she was just talking about whether we shown in Senegal or not...
Mati Diop 32:05
To show it in Senegal?
David Pendleton 32:07
Anywhere...
Mati Diop 32:08
It wouldn't make any sense, really.
David Pendleton 32:10
No, but the film has been seen in France presumably.
Mati Diop 32:12
Yes, yes, yes. Absolutely. And in some festivals all around the world.
David Pendleton 32:19
I mean, again, this question of here and there or back and forth, it resonates a lot throughout your work. And, I think it resonates a lot also with the idea of the McMillan award, like sort of looking at this back and forth between France and Francophone Africa. And so... I was going somewhere with a question for that, but I guess it's more a comment than anything else.
Are there other questions in the audience or comments that we can turn into a question?
Do you want to say a little bit about adaptation? A little bit more about the question of literature in your films or... You mentioned the number of literary works that are sort of behind Snow Canon. Big in Vietnam has this sort of references towards Les Liasons dangereuses, which is the film within the film. I'm wondering if you have any thoughts or ideas about adapting literature for the screen or doing that in the future? It seems also like a lot of your work often refers to other works, in a way, and they're often these sort of parallel texts—in the case of Mille soleils, it’s Touki bouki for instance.
Mati Diop 33:39
To my point of view, of course I'm influenced by a lot of different things and objects, but I don't really feel my films come from that many influences. I just mean they are mostly very personal. It's really, specifically Snow Canon, which is definitely completely visited by literature. Then on A Thousand Suns, it's only—not “only,” it's a huge place in the film—but it's kind of hasard that Baldwin was connected into the project and in Big in Vietnam, it's very... When I arrived after the proposal of this producer to shoot in one city with a certain number of actors, I decided to arrive to the audition with starting points. I didn't want to arrive with a script because I didn't know which actors I was going to meet. Actors and people are most of the time the starting point of what I do. I wanted to first choose my actors and then write starting from them. But I still arrived with an idea of making a film about a shooting. I don't know, it was my desire of the moment to make a film about the making of a film, and I decided it was going to be a period film because I was very excited by the fact of playing with these two temporalities in the present. And I chose a big cliche of French literature, Les Liasons dangereuses, and then when—in a very hasardeuse way—actors that I chose were half-Vietnamese, I found that the resonance between the Les Liasons dangereuses and the relationship with France to Vietnam [formed] interesting bridges. But you know, sometimes you really arrive with different pieces and the more you advance in your film, the more they finally rejoin and make strange and aleatory correspondences and then even more at the editing. So, I don't feel literature is one of the.. It is definitely not one of the foundations of my work. It’s, of course, something that feeds me a lot and definitely, but I don't think it's...
David Pendleton 37:07
Like the inspiration or the starting point.
Unknown Speaker 37:10
No, not the crucial one…. Except this film I will maybe do one day about this really strict adaptation of this novel I just mentioned, because it happens to be just… traversé?
David Pendleton 37:33
Like crossed by...
Mati Diop 37:35
Yeah, and that's what happened with this novel, so I might–
David Pendleton 37:39
Oh, you just sort of ran across it, you mean.
Mati Diop 37:40
Yeah, I might adapt this one.
David Pendleton 37:45
Well, no, because I was thinking about the ways in which often you take these images and then rework them in very interesting ways. Because there's a very striking moment in Snow Canon where the orientalist image is reversed, and it's the American woman who's posed with the veil and the jewelry, etc. We see them, they've been looking at postcards. I mean, I found that part really remarkable. And so I think, yeah, another comment.
But actually what I wanted to say before about this here and there—and you mentioned the question of influences, as well—was to what extent you consider yourself as belonging to any sort of tradition of cinema, whether a national tradition, or a contemporary school, or whether it really is film by film, you're trying totally different things every time. Oh, I mean, I guess the question of national cinema, like, for instance, to what extent do you think about French cinema, for instance, when you're making your films, or a tradition of Senegalese cinema? It may be that the concept means absolutely nothing to you...
Mati Diop 38:56
No, no, no, no, it's very interesting, your question, but it's a bit… difficult to answer.
David Pendleton 39:10
Well you don't have to answer it.
Mati Diop 39:14
I mean, now, here in front of all of you right now, in a very precise way, it's, I mean, you know, it's in English...
David Pendleton 39:26
Yeah. No, you absolutely don't have to answer it. I'm serious.
Mati Diop 39:30
I would love to answer you, but...
David Pendleton 39:34
Well, maybe you can answer somebody else. Yeah, there's a couple of other questions in the audience. Back there and then up here. Hang on one second.
Audience 3 39:40
Hello. I'm very curious about the woman in the first film Atlantiques. The young woman, you spend a lot of time looking at her. She looks away. She looks at the camera. I'm intrigued by that moment. Was there a direction? What was the direction? What was she thinking? Can you say something about that moment?
Mati Diop 40:06
That scene? This girl? I'm glad that you mentioned this moment, because I think it's one of the most moving moments for me in cinema I've ever been through. She's the sister of the main character. And this image has been filmed at the funeral of her brother Serigne. I don't know what to say much about her, except that she was there attending to her brother's funeral. And I was there too. And, the very present moment of this connection, this moment of recording what we were going through was just very special. And, it was also, it was really—I'm still learning cinema and to make films—but it was really one of the first films I was making. So I was really still—while I was making images—wondering what was it to film somebody and what was it to be filmed by someone, and while the recording was happening, it's really like I was realizing the act of filming, what it was, and so there was— as you see—a resistance from her at the beginning that suddenly went… lâché?
David Pendleton 41:58
She relaxes, she lets go.
Mati Diop 42:00
Yeah, and it was very... I don't know, I couldn't [?comment?]. And then during the editing when we struggled with how to find the equation for the film, she was really, to me—not the heart of the film—but maybe, for me, the shot that says the most because you have all these boys, specifically Serigne, talking about his story. I found that her silence was kind of expressing my own speechless feeling about the acts of crossing, because like I was saying yesterday, I think making Atlantiques was also a way to.... I was extremely—and still today—deeply moved and marked by this act of [committing] yourself to the ocean and to this act of crossing. I'm still very confused and troubled by this. And I think she really embodies this by her silence. Not only the pain she feels for her brother, but even more, the… [INAUDIBLE COMMENT?] Oui, voilà… I don’t…
David Pendleton 43:49
Thank you.
Yes, there's a question here. Actually, Kevin– Well, either one of you, whoever it’s easier to get her the mic....
Audience 4 43:59
I'm glad that question was asked because I was very focused on, I'm very moved by that shot also. But I noticed throughout the three films that there were a lot of moments that were very moving involving close-ups of the faces. And there was silence that was part of that. The close-ups were not necessarily situated within any type of narrative sequence, but there was just an incredible resonance coming through the faces. And I think that's something that is a very powerful aspect of all three of the films, perhaps Atlantiques, the first one, it was the most intense, but there are equally moments in the other two films that involve those close-ups where the face is really going through so many subtle transformations. And yet it kind of leaves a mystery with the viewer as well. And I think that that's very powerful. Thank you.
David Pendleton 45:16
Are there other questions… or comments? Well, in that case, we'll wrap it up by reminding you that on Monday night at seven o'clock, we'll be showing Touki bouki from 1973, an example of a really brilliant attempt, I think, to sort of synthesize a lot of different kinds of cinema aesthetics, and bring them to Senegal in a really interesting way. So, come back for that. And
Mati Diop 45:52
Yes, it's a really great [opportunity] to see this film and it's a very special film and I hope you will be there because it’s… You should see it.
David Pendleton 46:13
Thanks to all of you and thank you, Mati.
Mati Diop
Thank you.
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